POLITICO Playbook: Pelosi’s second-quarter cash haul, and CLF’s big 18 days in August

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has raised $87.4 million for Democrats in the 2018 cycle. | Alex Wong/Getty Images

DRIVING THE DAY

BREAKING OVERNIGHT … “Explosive detonated at the U.S. embassy in Beijing,” by CNN’s Matt Rivers, Ben Westcott and Steven Jiang in Beijing: “A 26-year-old man detonated an explosive on the street outside the US Embassy in Beijing Thursday, police said, injuring himself before he was taken away by authorities. The explosion ... took place outside the southeast corner of the compound at about 1 p.m. local time (1 a.m. ET), sending a large plume of white smoke into the air above the embassy.

“‘There was one individual who detonated a bomb. Other than the bomber, there were no injuries and there was no damage to embassy property. The local police responded,’ a U.S. Embassy spokesperson said in a statement. ... There are conflicting reports on the nature of the explosive, with the US Embassy spokesperson describing it as a ‘bomb’ and the Beijing police saying it was a ‘firecracker.’ ... After the initial reports, news of the incident was very quickly censored on Chinese social media.” CNN

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK -- HOUSE MINORITY LEADER NANCY PELOSI raised $20.7 million for Democrats in the second quarter, including $19.9 million to the DCCC. The California Democrat has raised $87.4 million for Democrats in the 2018 cycle.
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-- IN AUGUST, Pelosi is going to Texas, Arizona and New Mexico for public events and private fundraisers with Deb Haaland in New Mexico (running for Michelle Lujan Grisham’s seat); Veronica Escobar, who is running for Beto O’Rourke’s seat in Texas; and Greg Stanton, the former mayor of Phoenix who is running for Kyrsten Sinema’s seat. She has already held 84 fundraising events going to 24 cities.

PELOSI is headlining a DCCC fundraiser hosted by Rep. Betty McCollum in Minneapolis. She’ll also stop in Boston, New York, Chicago, Houston, Las Vegas, San Diego, Indianapolis and San Francisco.

OH, you want to know how all Congressional leaders are spending their August? JOHN BRESNAHAN and HEATHER CAYGLE have a story for you! Read it.

SCOOP … CONGRESSIONAL LEADERSHIP FUND raised $3.1 million July 1 through July 18, and will disclose $73.3 million cash on hand. This will become public as part of the super PAC’s pre-election report -- CLF has spent nearly $1.8 million to boost Troy Balderson in his contest against Danny O’Connor in Ohio’s 12th congressional district. They will file this report in the next day.
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-- CLF is running an ad hitting O’Connor for saying he’s going to support Pelosi for speaker. The ad is part of the group’s $2-million buy in Zanesville, Cleveland and Columbus. The ad

MEDIAWATCH -- “White House press corps showing unity after reporter barred from Rose Garden event,” by CNN’s Brian Stelter: “The ultra-competitive White House press corps is displaying something rare and refreshing: Solidarity. Journalists reacted with dismay when the Trump administration barred CNN's Kaitlan Collins from attending a presidential event in the Rose Garden. Two White House officials, Bill Shine and Sarah Sanders, told Collins that she asked ‘inappropriate’ questions during Trump's meeting with European Commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker. So the ban was retaliatory in nature.

“And it was deeply concerning to many reporters, even among CNN’s rivals. Fox News issued a statement saying ‘we stand in strong solidarity with CNN for the right to full access for our journalists as part of a free and unfettered press.’ Collins wasn’t just in the room with Trump and Juncker on behalf of CNN. She was the pool reporter on behalf of all the TV networks. This assignment, sometimes known as pool duty, rotates from TV network to network each day.” CNN

-- COLLINS was doing her job. The president can ignore questions -- previous presidents did all the time! -- but the White House shouldn't punish reporters for inquiries they don't like.

“In Wisconsin, which he won by about 23,000 votes, another 36 percent give Trump a thumbs up, with 52 percent giving him a thumbs down. And in Minnesota, which Trump narrowly lost by 1.5 percentage points, his rating stands at 38 percent approve, 51 percent disapprove.” NBC News

Good Thursday morning. Thank you to everyone who joined us for last night’s Playbook Summer Fest! A big thank you to RIAA, The Shadowboxers, Matt Wuerker and Pearl Street Warehouse. And, of course, to Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.) for hyping up the crowd and Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.) for getting on stage and playing a few songs to help kick off our “Playbook on the Road” campaign. Pics -- Crowley performing on stage… Collins…The Shadowboxers… Our first Playbook on the Road pic

HERE’S HOW IT WORKS: Tweet pictures of you and others reading Playbook on your summer getaways to #PlaybookLoyal or email them to daniel@politico.com for the chance to be featured in Playbook on Friday each week this August. Learn more

“The articles, filed late Wednesday by Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) — two top allies of President Donald Trump — blast Rosenstein for what they allege was a failure to respond to congressional document demands. Senior Justice Department officials have rejected the criticism and described historic levels of cooperation with Congress to share files connected to the FBI investigations of Hillary Clinton's email server and Trump campaign contacts with Russia.” POLITICO … Articles of impeachment

-- THE HFC always does something like this right before the August recess. They tried to boot John Boehner, they tried to push out the IRS commissioner, they tried to force a repeal of Obamacare and this year, they are trying to push out the deputy attorney general. They say they are responding to legitimate issues. Their detractors say they’re trying to raise money and split Republicans.

THE INVESTIGATIONS …

-- WAPO’S PHIL RUCKER, CAROL LEONNIG, TOM HAMBURGER and ASHLEY PARKER: “‘I’m not going to be a punching bag anymore’: Inside Michael Cohen’s break with Trump”: “In the nearly four months since FBI agents raided his office, home and hotel room, Cohen has felt wounded and abandoned by Trump, waiting for calls or even a signal of support that never came. Cohen got frustrated when Trump started talking about him in the past tense, panicked last month when he thought the president no longer cared about his plight, and became furious when Trump lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani contradicted some of his accounts, according to his associates.

“In Cohen’s gravest hour, as one associate described it, Trump was ‘leaving him out in the wilderness.’ The result is open warfare between attorney and former client. Cohen has chosen to morph from Trump’s pugnacious defender to a truth-teller without regard for any possible political or legal ramifications for the president, according to Lanny Davis, one of Cohen’s attorneys. ...

“The government has seized more than 100 recordings that Cohen made of his conversations with people discussing matters that could relate to Trump and his businesses and with Trump himself talking, according to two people familiar with the recordings. ... Trump’s voice is on several of the recordings, but only in snippets — typically when he is returning a call from Cohen or asking Cohen on a voice-mail message to call him back ... The only recording in which Trump and Cohen have a substantive conversation is the one that Davis released Tuesday.” WaPo

-- “National Enquirer’s Yearslong Dealings With Trump Lawyer Fall Under Federal Scrutiny,” by WSJ’s Michael Rothfeld, Joe Palazzolo, Lukas I. Alpert and Rebecca Davis O’Brien: “In previously unreported interactions, some of which are memorialized in emails now under review, Mr. Cohen mediated a dispute between Omarosa Manigault-Newman, who had been a star on Mr. Trump’s ‘Apprentice’ reality TV show, and the Enquirer over a story about her brother’s murder. He intervened in a separate legal case on behalf of David Pecker, chief executive of Enquirer parent American Media Inc.

“And when American Media paid a doorman who alleged that Mr. Trump fathered a child with one of his employees, a company executive ordered reporters to stop investigating after speaking with Mr. Cohen. The revelations show a relationship characterized by mutual benefit and favor-trading on a greater scale than was previously known. The shared history could expose American Media, Mr. Cohen and by extension, Mr. Trump, to criminal campaign-finance charges.” WSJ

NEW: VERSHA SHARMA interviewed JOE BIDEN for NOWTHIS about a potential 2020 run. SHARMA: “Well, you’ve spoken a lot about obligation. Mr. Biden, do you feel any obligation to jump back into a potential race?” BIDEN: “Well, I feel an obligation to stay engaged. The one thing that my son asked of me before he died was, ‘promise me, dad, you’ll stay involved.’ Because he was worried that with his loss, I would sort of turn inward. So that’s the book I wrote, Promise Me, Dad, it was about that commitment that I made to him.

“And I’m going to stay involved -- it’s something I’ve done my whole life. Whether I run for office again, I don’t know. But I know that I’m going to stay involved with this fight.” The video

HOW KIND!! … MELANIA WATCH -- “Melania Trump will watch ‘any channel she wants,’ spokeswoman says,” by CNN’s Kate Bennett: “First lady Melania Trump will watch ‘any channel she wants,’ according to her spokeswoman in an apparent rebuke to the report President Donald Trump was upset to find her Air Force One television tuned into CNN. East Wing communications director Stephanie Grisham told CNN Wednesday everyone should be focusing on the issues the first lady is seeking to highlight, such as neonatal abstinence syndrome, rather than what television channel she’s watching or a tape of her husband discussing a payout to a woman who claims to have had an extramarital affair with him.” CNN

-- @CNNPR: “Thanks for watching @FLOTUS!”

NAHAL TOOSI, BRYAN BENDER and ELIANA JOHNSON, “Cabinet chiefs feel shut out of Bolton’s ‘efficient’ policy process”: “National security adviser John Bolton's effort to simplify the administration’s decision-making process is frustrating Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary James Mattis and causing confusion about the United States’ position on major issues including Russia, according to officials familiar with the situation.

“Mattis has gone so far as to draft a letter to Bolton requesting that he hold more gatherings of agency and department chiefs ‘to smooth the bubble’ on thorny issues ranging from U.S. policy in Syria to North Korea, according to one senior administration official. In particular, senior officials are concerned about the dearth of ‘principals committee’ meetings scheduled by Bolton, officials say. Principals committee meetings are traditionally key forums for relevant Cabinet bosses to prepare and recommend policy options for the president.” POLITICO

TRADE WARS WHIPLASH -- “In abrupt shift, Trump makes nice with EU, gets tough on Russia,” by Andrew Restuccia: “Over the course of just 11 days, President Donald Trump went from calling the European Union a ‘foe’ and publicly questioning his own intelligence agencies to palling around with a top EU official in the Rose Garden and scheduling a meeting with his senior advisers to discuss election security.

“It was an abrupt tonal shift for the president — and it underscored the growing pressure on Trump from fellow Republicans to toughen his public stance against Russia and to limit the fallout of the escalating global trade wars. Few people close to the president believe he has changed much, and they expect the president to continue bashing long-time U.S. allies and cozying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin whenever he gets the chance.” POLITICO

-- @realDonaldTrump at 9:01 p.m.: “Great to be back on track with the European Union. This was a big day for free and fair trade!”… at 9:07 p.m.: “European Union representatives told me that they would start buying soybeans from our great farmers immediately. Also, they will be buying vast amounts of LNG!”

TRUMP’S THURSDAY -- This morning the president heads to Northeast Iowa Community College in Peosta, Iowa. He will tour a lab and participate in a workforce development roundtable discussion. He will then travel to Granite City, Illinois where he will have a tour of Granite City Works and he will deliver a speech on trade before returning to Washington.

PLAYBOOK READS

PHOTO DU JOUR: Relatives and friends of U.S. pastor Andrew Craig Brunson exult Wednesday as he arrives at his house in Izmir, Turkey, after being jailed for over one and a half years. | Emre Tazegul/AP Photo

BORDER TALES …

-- “Most deported migrants were not asked about leaving children behind, Trump official says,” by Ted Hesson, Renuka Rayasam, and Dan Diamond: “Homeland Security officials may have neglected to give a choice to as many as three-quarters of all migrant parents removed from the United States about leaving their children behind, contradicting repeated public assurances from Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

“The Trump administration failed to document consent in most such cases, an administration official told POLITICO. That lapse increased the number of departed parents whom officials must now find and contact about whether they wish to be reunited with their children, and, if so, figure out the logistics of how to bring them together. The revelation threatens to delay reunifications one day ahead of a court-ordered deadline to return most migrant children to their parents.” POLITICO

W.H. REVOLVING DOOR -- NANCY COOK: “White House lawyer Passantino planning to leave”: “The departure of Stefan Passantino, the deputy White House counsel responsible for policing ethics for Trump officials, will leave a huge hole in the White House’s legal operation, where the 51-year-old has operated as the number two to top attorney Don McGahn.” POLITICO

THE BANNON-BORIS NEXUS -- “Boris Johnson Has Been Privately Talking To Steve Bannon As They Plot Their Next Moves,” by BuzzFeed’s J. Lester Feder, Mark Di Stefano and Alex Spence in London: “Donald Trump’s former chief adviser Steve Bannon has been in direct communication with former UK foreign secretary Boris Johnson, as both men plot new moves that could have a significant impact on European politics, multiple sources told BuzzFeed News. ...

“A source who spent time with Bannon during the trip said Bannon was in private contact with Johnson while he was in Britain. ... A former UK government source told BuzzFeed News that Bannon and Johnson have known each other for some time, and exchanged text messages as far back as when Johnson was foreign secretary and Bannon worked in the White House.” BuzzFeed

PLAYBOOKERS

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: DOJ DEPARTURE LOUNGE -- Ian Prior has left DOJ as principal deputy director of public affairs and will start later this month as a VP at Mercury. Devin O’Malley has been promoted to Prior’s old job at DOJ.

SPOTTED: Diane Lane having the buffet lunch with a small group yesterday at Capitol Hill Club. She was the special guest at a “shark week” reception hosted by Oceana and Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.) last night in Rayburn.

BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Scott Sforza, senior counselor at the Harbour Group and a Bush 43 and 41 alum. A fun fact about Scott: “I was a volunteer paramedic/firefighter in Montgomery County, Maryland for 10 years. I preferred Emergency Medical Services (EMS) over firefighting. I went on many fire calls, but the EMS calls were the most memorable and the most difficult. Since they involved life and death situations, the difficulty came in making the right decisions at 3:00 in the morning, in the middle of nowhere, with people severely injured and trapped from an auto accident and racing to get them out and keep them alive. It was always memorable when you could help save someone’s life.” Playbook Plus Q&A

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About The Author : Anna Palmer

Anna Palmer is a senior Washington correspondent for POLITICO and co-author of POLITICO’s Playbook, the most indispensable morning newsletter for the biggest influencers in politics.

Anna covers the world of Congress and politics, and has successfully chronicled the business of Washington insiders for years. Her stories take readers behind the scenes for the biggest fights in Washington as well as the 2016 election.

Prior to becoming POLITICO’s senior Washington correspondent, Anna was the co-author of the daily newsletter, POLITICO Influence, considered a must-read on K Street.

Anna previously covered House leadership and lobbying as a staff writer for Roll Call. She got her start in Washington journalism as a lobbying business reporter for the industry newsletter Influence. She has also worked at Legal Times, where she covered the intersection of money and politics for the legal and lobbying industry, first as a staff writer and then as an editor.

A native of North Dakota, Anna is a graduate of St. Olaf College, where she was executive editor of the weekly campus newspaper, the Manitou Messenger. She lives in Washington, D.C.

About The Author : Jake Sherman

Jake Sherman is a senior writer for POLITICO and co-author of POLITICO’s Playbook, the most indispensable morning newsletter for the biggest influencers in politics.

Jake is the top congressional reporter on Capitol Hill and has built a career on landing hard-to-get scoops.

Since 2009, Jake has chronicled all of the major legislative battles on Capitol Hill, and has also traveled the country to cover the battle for control of Congress.

Jake takes readers inside the rooms where decisions are made. His high-impact reporting resulted in the resignation of Aaron Schock.

Before landing at POLITICO, Jake worked in the Washington bureaus of The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek and the Minneapolis Star Tribune. He also interned on the metro desk of The Journal News (N.Y.) and, during high school, worked on the sports desk of the Stamford Advocate (Conn.).

Jake is a Connecticut native, and a graduate of The George Washington University — where he edited The GW Hatchet — and Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. Jake lives in Washington with his wife Irene, and listens to an unhealthy amount of Grateful Dead and Phish.

About The Author : Daniel Lippman

Daniel Lippman is a reporter for POLITICO and a co-author of POLITICO's Playbook, the most indispensable morning newsletter for the biggest influencers in politics.

Before joining POLITICO, he was a fellow covering environmental news for E&E Publishing and a reporter for The Wall Street Journal in New York. He has also interned for McClatchy Newspapers and Reuters. During a stint freelancing in 2013, he traveled to the Turkish-Syrian border to cover the impact of the Syrian civil war for The Huffington Post and CNN.com.

He graduated from The Hotchkiss School in 2008 and from The George Washington University in 2012. Daniel hails from the Berkshires in western Massachusetts and enjoys playing tennis, seeing movies and trying out new restaurants in his free time.